Order of the Black Sun Box Set 3 Read online

  Now it was here; right here, in front of him, the birth of ARK.

  “You look positively sullen, David,” she said next to him suddenly. Purdue started. His twin sister had snuck up on him while he was surveying the vast and seemingly indestructible hall that was nearing the end of completion.

  “You scared the hell out of me, Agatha,” he said in surprise.

  “Apologies. I don’t recall you being such a frail pup,” she teased with a pout, Agatha’s rendition of a chuckle. “What is this place all about?”

  Purdue was aching to ask her about her time in the claws of the council in Rotterdam, but he refrained because of the unspeakable torment they had exerted on her. It was not just personal and traumatic for her, but it was not something easily addressed. In all this he still wished he could just ask, because it would have helped his final cause so much to know how she had survived Bloem’s men and their brutal methods of doing away with her. Knowing what had happened to her and how she eventually came to a relatively bearable existence would have benefitted what he wished to use against them. Unfortunately, this was not the time or place for such prying and Purdue elected to remain professional—for now.

  “You have not heard of ARK while you were in the company of the council?” he asked. Agatha looked hard at him, her face wrought with intolerance for his cheap attempt at reminding her where she had spent months of hell just for being his kin.

  “No, David. I have not heard of it. You do know that I was not invited to their meetings or their lavish parties,” she snapped in abrupt sarcasm.

  “I suppose you weren’t wearing the right jacket,” Purdue jested with a slight smirk.

  Agatha scoffed as her eyes ran coldly across the huge gathering hall, “No, apparently I was wearing the wrong surname.”

  The statement hit Purdue in the gut. He looked at his sister with empathy and honest regret. Not only did he abandon his twin in the jungles of Africa when they were young, to pursue family matters, but he had the audacity to do it again when he learned of her capture. Once more he did not go out of his way to rescue her, hoping that she would somehow get out of her predicament without his aid and once more, she had managed.

  “I am not the only Purdue responsible for the disdain of others,” he defended, while he knew what had happened to Agatha was categorically his fault. They used her to get to him and any chance she had to make her own way was marred by her brother’s reputation and her family name. Agatha simply always pulled the shortest straw. Something about how she looked at him convinced Purdue that she would not allow anyone to take advantage of her again.

  “Oh, you want to blame me?” she asked. “I successfully moved under the radar all my life, you know, until I found you again. Just mull that one around in your head, old boy.”

  “I did not ask you to seek me out,” Purdue said plainly, ignoring eye contact with her under pretense of overseeing the arrangement of the ladders on the concrete walls. “You came to me, out of obscurity.”

  “Ah,” she smiled, a humorless grin utterly laced with hurt, “that obscurity I was cast

  into . . . by whom, again? Just remind me? Oh! The brother who was too goddamn good to come and look for me after my uncle left my fate in the hands of a bunch of tribal nursemaids. That same brother did not care to set aside one single day to condescend to come and see if I was even alive.”

  “I knew you would be all right, Agatha,” he replied meekly. “You were always self-sufficient. Besides, I did look for you for the longest time. My investigators had me convinced that you had perished.”

  “And just like when you heard I was dead from a bunch of ingrates who took your money for no services rendered, you believed it again. You believed I was dead when that stinking Dutchman and his imbecilic sycophants lied to you. David, you never double-check if you are being lied to. My God, you are naïve!”

  He looked at her. His sister had never been this fragile and it alarmed him. Did he really do this to Agatha with his insistent gallivanting with danger? The normally cool and composed genius she was had now momentarily shed her robotic logic and revealed her humanness to him. It was almost an honor for Purdue to be torn out like this by his sister, proving to him that what he did actually did matter to her after all. He put his arms around Agatha, but she did not reciprocate in any way. Like a mannequin she stood waiting for him to get his fill of the mocking embrace she did not recognize.

  Any normally functioning woman would have perhaps shed a tear by now, but the scrawny blonde woman he had grown up with only stared blankly at him. Purdue sighed, more in relief at her minor outburst than hopelessness at never regaining her trust again.

  “You do have an uncanny way to dismiss the possibilities of being betrayed by those you trust. Twice you were told that I was dead, David, and both times you did not waver to question the source and find the truth. The women you care for aren’t dead just because your precious Nazi mates told you so, you know,” she said bitterly, folding her slender arms over her chest and finding a point in the vicinity to focus her attention on.

  Purdue felt her words seep into his reason. Something in what Agatha said, although naked truth, sank heavily into his mind. It was something he never considered, yes. She was absolutely correct! It suddenly dawned on him that he might have also been lied to about Nina’s fate. For once he would question the report. If there was any woman worth investigating further, it was Dr. Nina Gould. Purdue gave his sister a tender look, realizing that she was deliberately using their torrid and shaky bond to reveal something very important to him.

  “Agatha?” he whispered, taking care not to exhibit his stunned realization to those who could see him here.

  “What?” she asked abruptly. “When are you going to explain this whole set-up to me?” She spoke dismissively, but he smiled at her. To say thank you would be redundant and besides, Agatha was not the soppy type. In appreciation for the news he favored her by not dwelling on the subject one moment longer, but Agatha could see her brother’s face light up and his enthusiasm returning as if by some form of magic. If she was the type, maybe she would have smiled.

  29

  “This is ARK. This is where the order will be housed during the two weeks of isolation after the execution of Final Solution 2,” he explained eagerly, not that his fervor was based on the work he was doing. It was solely born from the choice he had just made, one that was impossible to decide on just a few minutes before his sister made her appearance. Of the three options he had given himself, the idea that Nina was still alive helped him choose the path he was to take in the coming events.

  “ARK?” she asked with a tinge of ridicule. “How original.”

  “It’s an abbreviation of Avrakin Remus Kitavru, an ancient phrase from a very obscure book that this building’s design is built on,” Purdue elucidated. “The SS had implemented the construction of several of these all over the world, wherever the more prominent members of the Thule and Vril societies could congregate in the event of the crossing.”

  “You also believe such poppycock, David? Really? As a scientist I’d have reckoned you a logical thinker and not some fanatical follower of antique, outlived ideology,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Whether I believe the crossing is possible, or even founded, is inconsequential. I have a duty to perform and, quite frankly, that is what is keeping us alive at the moment. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know how expendable I am, Agatha. Contrary to what you might assess about me, I am not naïve in all things. My genius is not exclusive, just convenient,” he told her in no uncertain terms. Agatha nodded in silent contemplation, her eyes resting on the marble tiled floor.

  “What you and I need to focus on, is to find the Library of Forbidden Books. There lies all the secrets of what had really been going on behind the stage curtains since before the advent of the First Reich—the Roman Empire,” he said urgently, but kept his voice low. It had become evident that even some of the Italian-based workmen const
ructing the ARK—Venice were clandestine operatives. Nobody could be trusted and when Renatus spoke, ears piqued for information. “And some of that information is what Meiner needs to complete the last phase of Final Solution 2 before my technology sends it out into the Earth’s atmosphere.”

  “Final Solution 2 is practically foolproof,” Agatha replied. “If we were to find the library somehow destroyed or the particular books stolen from it, it certainly would be a good day for the citizens of the planet.”

  “Mind your voice,” Purdue cautioned. “We’ll decide what we do when we find the place, if it even exists.”

  “Oh, it exists. On that note, brother of mine,” Agatha attempted a more casual way, “should we not be getting ready to scour glorious Venice for its most dangerous secret?”

  Purdue looked at his watch, “I believe so. Time for a bit of light reading.”

  When they got back to Purdue’s apartment, the two siblings took to researching the positions of all the spires in Venice that Purdue had recorded on his tablet during the previous week, which would form a map to locate the library in question.

  “How did you figure that out? By the way, you are not known for your imagination,” Agatha asked, crunching down on some cookies she bought from a local vendor.

  “You know, your addiction to sweets would have one think that you would be more . . . robust,” Purdue marveled at his sister’s compulsive eating habits. “Why cookies, specifically?” She gave him a leer of amusement. He just shook his head, knowing that there was no answer forthcoming, at least not a sincere one.

  “I cannot find 5Hu or 18Jk on here,” she mumbled through the cookie in her mouth, legs crossed on Purdue’s bed with her astrophysics references dancing on her tablet. “There seems to be a discrepancy on the third tier of what you’ve got here, David.”

  Her habit of correcting him had by now become so mundane that Purdue hardly ever felt annoyed by it anymore. After all, many times before, her snooty over-analysis had spotted important inconsistencies that saved him a lot of time and trouble. Just for that Dave Purdue had to yield to his twin sister’s combined eccentric genius and lack of tact.

  “Check the second tier of the basic astronomy diagram, Agatha. I might have placed it in the wrong divergence of the first and third connections,” he replied dryly without even looking up at her, but he could feel her stare.

  “You’ve changed,” she said.

  “So have you,” he replied immediately, not bothering to meet her eyes with his.

  “You used to hate it when I illuminated your erroneous observations. You have surely taken the fun out of correcting you. But then again I suppose you are employing some form of psychological trick to discourage my mockery by pretending that it does not stick a probe up your ass every time I do it,” she speculated just short of sounding amused that he was so transparent.

  “Nope. I sincerely admit that you are an asset to any fallible scientist out there,” he teased. “Now tell me when you manage to notice where Perseus meets with Fg45, so that I can match it up and complete this diagram. Please and thank you.”

  “Why don’t we just go to the Specola? They have a proper telescope from where you can enter your calculations in a jiffy, David. Not everyone knows who we are. It would be safe enough to collect information of constellations from them, because . . . well, everyone does, dearest. They will not harbor suspicion, I promise,” she suggested. Her added play on his perceived paranoia tapped into his mood like the repetitive clang of a dripping tap in a sink, but he restrained his natural urge to hit back with some well-placed sarcasm.

  “I don’t want to be seen on any closed circuit cameras, studying stars when I am supposed to find a legendary alien hotspot,” Purdue sighed. “It is just too embarrassing to think I have to buy into all this interstellar monster rubbish to . . . ”

  “Say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Say it, David. To save the world, because Nina Gould is in it.”

  “Mind your own business,” Purdue reprimanded her amicably. “If we can locate which tower points are under constellation Draco, even vaguely, I can find the channel we have to dive in.”

  “Do we have to do the diving gear? I have such a stern aversion to big structures under the water. Venice truly is a personal nightmare to even think about, let alone to go submerging myself in the very phobia I nurture every time I see wreck divers,” Agatha protested.

  “We have to dive, Agatha. And I don’t know half as much about ancient literature and authors of obscurity like you do. I need you to do this with me,” he coaxed. Purdue was well aware of his sister’s terrible fear not of water, nor of depths, but of statues, buildings, or vessels submerged in water. Even common objects under the water unsettled her because Agatha figured it was grotesque when certain things were not where they were supposed to be. It almost rendered her childlike when she laid her eyes on shipwrecks or large tree branches caught in the rushing waters of a river.

  She realized that such things horrified her when she swam in an African lagoon, hardly a few months after her brother and uncle had left her behind on their return to Scotland when she was very young. Swimming in the cool water, Agatha tested her speed across between the north and west sandbanks. Exactly halfway through the dark body of serene water she remembered briefly opening her eyes under the water while counting her strokes to the next breath. What she saw simply scared the irrational bejesus out of her. Agatha’s legs and arms had gone numb at the sight of the strange phenomenon.

  Trees don’t belong under the water, she protested in her mind, in the midst of her reminiscence of that first shock as a child. Neither do houses, nay, cities!

  “I don’t want to go,” she fought. Her tone began to sound much like a child about to throw a tantrum, and Purdue was not having it. He had no time for mollycoddling or arguing about petty matters while some bat-shit crazy scientist and an evil house of imps with unlimited power and wealth were threatening the very existence of the world as he knew it.

  “Agatha, you are going with me. I asked for you, when I could have asked for anyone else. You owe me at least that much for getting you out of captivity once and for all. Don’t force me to pull rank on you,” he warned her seriously. He would not send her back to her doom, but he would force her to comply by any means if it would help him fulfill his aim.

  Agatha cursed her brother with her eyes. Not only did he force this on her, but the fact that he even brought up her liberation and claimed some sort of reputation from something that would generally be expected of brothers, pissed her off something awful.

  “All right, but since we are on the subject of threats,” she snarled back, “I am a better swimmer than you and I might decide to use our lonely excursion to drown you and leave your bloated arse to the crabs at the bottom of the Grand Canal.”

  With the delightful exchange of death threats between loving siblings behind them, Dave Purdue just looked at his sister with absolute indifference.

  “Are you done?”

  “Just about,” she replied casually, taking another cookie.

  Outside his chamber, a shuffle of feet sounded. They could hear two people murmuring about something that carried a subdued, but urgent tone. A feeble knock prompted Purdue and his sister to cast muted glances to each other, gestures and shrugging about who it could be.

  “Renatus,” a voice spoke from outside the door. “It’s Jennings, your night secretary.”

  Purdue went to open the door, “Yes?”

  “Just wanted to inform you, sir, that another council member has been found murdered,” the rookie in the cheap suit informed him.

  “Who?” Purdue asked. He felt an odd sense of comfort at the news, but as Renatus, he was supposed to preside over all Black Sun arrangements for formalities regarding the council and its board of old veteran members.

  “Izaak Geldenhuys, Renatus,” the young man replied in a heavy Italian accent.

  “How?” Purdue pressed the
reluctant herald, impatient at the imposition. His time was running out to find the Library of Forbidden Books with its wealth of ciphers and code still to be unraveled. while a fumbling idiot regurgitated bad news one word at a time. The young man looked sickened, something Purdue was not used to seeing in his company lately.

  “He was . . . beheaded . . . sir,” the secretary forced out, disbelieving the manner of thing he had to convey.

  “Grazie,” Purdue replied simply with the relevant expression of shock and loss expected of him. The news would be of special importance to his sister, but Purdue was not sure as to the extent of Agatha’s relationship with Geldenhuys, who had been her captor since she survived Joost Bloem’s hell almost a year before.

  “Izaak is dead, Agatha,” Purdue told her. He did not want to waste time with etiquette. He was right to think she would welcome the news. In fact, it disturbed Purdue somewhat to see Agatha’s reaction to the news, because her vengeful laughter and reveling assured him that the late council member was not kind to her on any level. It was alarming to see her eyes blaze with silent ecstasy at the demise of Geldenhuys, and it was clear that whatever he did to Agatha while she was in his charge was not fit for any punishment.

  30

  Just off the coast of Oban, a father-and-son fishing operation was pulling in a net. It was just after sunrise and the entire crew were elated at the catch they already scored from the icy blue waters. It was going to be an early day, and being Friday, it would mean Guinness and chips at Ballie’s Bar for a change. Usually the crew of the Talisman had to work well past dusk to fill their daily quota, but when they harvested a full net before the day even started, it meant good things. Today was such a day.

  “Latch on the arm there, Pete,” Dugal shouted at one of his crewmen. “The weather’s looking nasty out and I don’t want to have that rope snapping on me when we have more of these to pull out, all right?”